Brianna Marshall, left, buys flowers from Chandler Reed of "Pastures of Plenty" at the Boulder Farmers Market on June 9, 2012. Boulder planners are considering how to further develop the city s Civic Center, which includes the area where the market is set up. (Cliff Grassmick)

Boulder planners consider the area between Ninth and 17th streets, Arapahoe Avenue and Canyon Boulevard, bisected by Boulder Creek, to be the city's "civic heart."

Throughout the summer, city planners will be looking for ideas from the public about how to further develop the area, which includes Central Park, the Boulder County Farmers' Market and the Boulder Main Public Library.

The community outreach will include an open house at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art on July 11; walking tours, art installations and performances at the Farmers' Market and other downtown events; small-group workshops; and an online, interactive process through which people can submit and respond to ideas.

"We want to get a collective vision that can be synthesized into some sort of guiding principle," said Sam Assefa, senior urban designer for Boulder's Community Planning and Sustainability Department.

The Boulder City Council will be asked to sign off on that vision by October or November of this year. By the end of 2013, the city hopes to have a concrete plan for the area's future.

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The City Council study session Tuesday will include an update on the Civic Center plan.

The city has received some feedback already from people worried about what the Civic Center plan means for the Farmers' Market or saying they don't want a conference center downtown.

Assefa said the project name in use so far -- Civic Center Plan -- may have given some people the wrong idea about what the city wants to do.

"A good number of people think this is a building or a conference center," he said. "That's not what this is about. There may be a building, but the process is about the Civic Center area. This is more the civic heart of the city. It's looking at how this place could complement the business and social heart on the Pearl Street Mall. This is about the engagement of civic activities. We have a lot of civic functions that go on in this place."

The city is working on a new name for the project that will give people a better idea of its purpose, Assefa said.

In a memo to the City Council, planning officials said there are several assumptions that will guide the process. Those assumptions include:

Boulder Creek and the riparian area are an integral part of the Civic Center area and will not be channeled or excavated.

Parkland and outdoor space will continue to be an important part of the area.

The Farmers' Market will remain within the Civic Center area and possibly be expanded or reconfigured.

The municipal campus will remain downtown, though facilities may be reconfigured or relocated.

The Boulder Main Public Library will remain at its present site, though it may be expanded or reconfigured.

Potential for public/private partnerships will be explored.

The city plans to launch a website dedicated to the Civic Center plan later this month, but the first public event will be the open house at BMoCA. At that open house, the city also will launch a Civic Center idea-collaboration site on MindMixer.com.

Mind Mixer allows people to submit their own ideas, including drawings or plans, and other people can respond to them. The city can then analyze the support for various proposals.

Some ideas that have been floated already include a performing arts space, a science museum and the creation of an education component to the Farmers' Market.

Through July and August, there will be walking tours and performances at the Farmers' Market, Outdoor Cinema events, the library concert and the tulip giveaway to raise awareness about the project and educate people about the area's history.

Then in August and September, there will be meetings to get ideas from the public and stakeholders.

Assefa said the initial process will be as open as possible.

"In the initial process, no idea is bad," he said. "There are many, many ideas out there. There are groups looking at it as a cultural space, with performance spaces and a science museum. We wanted to put out a process that would capture with a big funnel all the ideas out there."

Then, city planners will try to shape those ideas into a plan that will guide the area's future for years to come.

"How do we bring all of these things together to create kind of a city's living room?" Assefa said. "We don't know what we get at the end of this process."

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